26 February, 2012

A Belgian welcome

We arrived on Wednesday night for a short stay before heading to our beautifully furnished, cosy little apartment at the Team Manager’s house. Of course it’s turned out that the house isn’t finished yet so we’re staying put for the time being with four of us sleeping in a 5 year old girl’s bedroom. This is the high life, after spending the first night in bed with the team boss Andrew (sleeping in a sleeping bag obviously).

We got given a load of new kit which is always good, and the new bikes are pretty sweet. I had a bit of a mare and managed to put my O Symetric chain rings on wrong so I couldn’t use the little ring on my first ride. I’ve sorted it now though and enjoyed the limitless bike paths yesterday; I rode all the way to Bruges (which is really nice) and didn’t leave the bike path once.

Every time I come to Belgium I seem to have a few good stories to tell, and this time’s no different. We’re all enjoying flushing the toilet with a bucket and getting drinking water out of the shower. It’s great to get such a warm welcome from the Belgian guys here though and we’re all excited to start racing.

Josh and I are doing a 140km point to point tomorrow with a 2km cobble section in so that’ll be nice. I’ll report back with any good news. Tarrah.